FTSE rising whilst prospect of FTA seems to be fading

Thrugelmir

Xbigman said:

David Cameron saw the alarming rise in UKIP support and made the offer of a referendum to slow it down. It worked with the conservative/Lib Dem coalition taking power and UKIP coming nowhere. Cameron misjudged just how strong anti EU feeling was and lost the referendum. Suggesting the referendum should never have taken place when it would have boosted UKIP dramatically and changed the political landscape is nonsense. 

Cameron went to Brussels in the hope of obtaining agreement to changes on a number of issues. He encountered the full might of political intransigence that prevails there. He gambled and lost. Such is the lot of all polticians. Limited shelf life. 

BananaRepublic

Thrugelmir said:

Xbigman said:

David Cameron saw the alarming rise in UKIP support and made the offer of a referendum to slow it down. It worked with the conservative/Lib Dem coalition taking power and UKIP coming nowhere. Cameron misjudged just how strong anti EU feeling was and lost the referendum. Suggesting the referendum should never have taken place when it would have boosted UKIP dramatically and changed the political landscape is nonsense. 

Cameron went to Brussels in the hope of obtaining agreement to changes on a number of issues. He encountered the full might of political intransigence that prevails there. He gambled and lost. Such is the lot of all polticians. Limited shelf life. 

Quite right, I’d forgotten that. Had he been given meaningful concessions, rather than worthless trinkets, we might still be in the EU. 

BananaRepublic

Mickey666 said:

BananaRepublic said:

Mickey666 said:

IanManc said:

Mickey666 said:

If anything, I'd say the Brexit referendum was a masterclass in proving why asking the uninformed masses to make important decisions is the worst example of democracy in action.  It's all madness.

I see.

Democracy's ok, provided people aren't allowed to make choices you disapprove of. And if they do choose something of which you disapprove then they're "uninformed masses".

Interesting.

No, no, no.  You misunderstand me.  Let's be honest, the masses ARE uninformed!  And I'm as uninformed as any of them.  We all have our opinions, prejudices and dogma but what are they based on?  Really, honestly?  Hardly anyone who votes is a professional politicial or economist etc, so it's hardly surprising that the electorate as a whole is uninformed.  I'd bet that hardly anyone who voted for Brexit understood the issues that would arise out of the land border in Ireland, for example.  Why would they?  THAT'S why we have a parliamentary democracy whereby we vote for professional politicians to make the big, small and complex decisions about how to run the country on our behalf.  And even those professional politicians, despite spending all their waking hours engaged on the job, in parliamentary debates, in select committees, travelling the country etc, are not fully informed themselves, which is why they rely on advisors, experts, think tanks, the civil service etc.  It's easy to sneer at politicians as 'being useless' but the fact is that running a country and an economy is incredibly complex.  So complex in fact that even the professionals with all their expert advisors can't always get it right - so what chance has the 'man on the Clapham omnibus' got of being truly, accurately and fully informed?

THAT is why referendums are a bad thing.  Because, unless they are for something trivial and inconsequential, they put binding decision-making power into the hands of people who do not truly understand all the issues and consequences.

That's not to denigrate the 'uninformed masses', merely being honest about the reality.

I could not disagree more. There are countless arguments against your view. 

You clearly believe that there exists a group of experts with our best interests at heart. In truth there is no such thing. 

Not so.  Indeed I explicitly wrote " . . . the fact is that running a country and an economy is incredibly complex.  So complex in fact that even the professionals with all their expert advisors can't always get it right . . . "
I happen to agree with much of what you say, but you're avoiding the issue of referendums opening up important and highly consequential decisions to the 'uninformed masses'.  

Clearly you did not read my post. 

Such decisions are too important to be left to the likes of politicians. It was after all politicians who took us to war in Iraq on the basis of expert advice. 

BananaRepublic

Mickey666 said:

As for the like of Boris, Rees-Mogg etc, don't forget they are only in parliament because their constituents voted for them, so that's democracy in action isn't it?  After all, it would be an unrepresentative parliament that DIDN'T include representation of such people.

Regarding your first point, you are in a literal sense correct. But they were placed in safe seats that  would elect a dead hamster if it wore a blue rosette. Rees Mogg is a privileged individual who has got where he is through family contacts, wealth, and knowing how to suck up to Tory HQ. He didn’t get there because he was the best suited to advancing his consituents and the country. And that is true of many politicians, of all hues. 

As for your second point, I take it that is ironic humour. 

NottinghamKnight

Mickey666 said:

NottinghamKnight said:

Mickey666 said:

NottinghamKnight said:

Mickey666 said:

MK62 said:

Mickey666 said:

Thrugelmir said:

csgohan4 said:

Thrugelmir said:

csgohan4 said:

LHW99 said:

UK surely makes more exports to the EU than the rest of the world?

Not according to gov.uk

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-exports-to-non-eu-countries-continue-to-outstrip-eu

Surprising given the vast area covered by The EU, however making deals with individual countries, rather than en bloc like the EU, will be very time consuming/expensive and will unlikely have favourable terms compared to the EU as they know they have the UK over a barrel. 

Only 11% of UK trade is with countries with which there's an existing EU trade agreement. The creation of the RCEP has created a headache for the EU. Now the bigggest trade area in the world. 

 While the brexiteers are sniggering in their rich holiday houses abroad, not caring how brexit affects the average Joe. 

You are carrrying one big chip on your shoulder. Time to move on. Remainers living abroad are the ones who object. As it is they they now need to meet conditions of residency. The tales of woe show how much self interest determines peoples views. Much in the same way Covid has. Time to kick American Exceptionalism a byproduct of their form of capitalism into touch. 

If anything, I'd say the Brexit referendum was a masterclass in proving why asking the uninformed masses to make important decisions is the worst example of democracy in action.  It's all madness.

You do realise that it's the same "uninformed masses" who elect our MPs and governments don't you?........should they not be allowed to do that either?

Of course they should, that's the whole point of a parliamentary democracy.  We vote for a representative to make decisions on our behalf, on the basis that those representatives will be better informed than us by virtue of their 24/7/365 time spent on the job plus their daily access to expert advisers, parliamentary debates, select committees, the civil service etc.

We certainly don't or at least that is not what occurs. The majority of the people vote for a party, not an individual with a very few exceptions; indeed those votes are based on a feeling that the broad policies of that party are best for an individual and/ or the country, how many people read any of a party's manifesto. MPs are now supposed to be representative rather than any sort of cream of the population, and unfortunately will follow the party line as they are whipped into voting on the vast majority of issues. when MPs decide to make decisions against their party, and potentially against the majority of their constituents then things get very problematic. 

You're probably right that the majority of people vote for a party and probably don't even know the name of their MP (more uninformed-ness and why there are things such as 'safe seats'), but I didn't mention MPs, only 'representatives'. 

A political party can be our 'representative' and the principle of parliamentary democracy remains - the 'uninformed masses' defer all decision-making to parliament, with the party affiliation of their local MP being a fairly broad-brush expression of their own personal political leanings.

It seems to be a fairly good system, or the least bad on depending on your point of view.  But referendums break the system because they bypass the parliamentary process that generally does a good job of weeding out detrimental decisions, through its process of debate, expert advice, reviews and time for reflection.

In the case of the Brexit referendum, with all its complexity and uncertainty that even the professional politicians and expert consultants couldn't predict or agree about, perhaps a better approach would have been a second referendum when the detailed implications were much better known?

Thus, the first referendum could have been the simplistic in/out question, followed by the inevitable (and important) debate and negotiation of the exit deal, followed by a second referendum asking the same basic in/out question but this time in the fuller knowledge of what the detailed implications would be.

What we have actually done is ask the simplistic in/out question with little real knowledge of the eventual implications but when those implications are better known (ie 'the deal') we have deferred back to parliament to decide, rather than allow the people to decide.

Seems rather inconsistent really.

Maybe, democracy can be taken too far after all, would be much quicker to get the educated and wealthy to determine these matters. people like Boris, Rees-Mogg  etc

Did you forget the smiley?
I think we'd all agreed we've rightly moved on from the days where only landowners were allowed a vote  - and that didn't include women of course.
As for the like of Boris, Rees-Mogg etc, don't forget they are only in parliament because their constituents voted for them, so that's democracy in action isn't it?  After all, it would be an unrepresentative parliament that DIDN'T include representation of such people.

Maybe but the ultimate outcome is pretty similar and the electorate had a clear choice between in and out (as for the SNP in Scotland) between Boris and Corbyn and chose the former. Most people are voting for the least worse option let's not forget.

Malthusian

NottinghamKnight s aid:

Maybe but the ultimate outcome is pretty similar and the electorate had a clear choice between in and out (as for the SNP in Scotland) between Boris and Corbyn and chose the former. Most people are voting for the least worse option let's not forget.

Corbyn's Labour also wanted out of the capitalist club - not that I blame anyone for forgetting his position on anything a year after he became an irrelevance. The Lib Dems were the "in" option. So that actually illustrates your "least worse option" even better than you thought.

Malthusian

Xbigman said:
David Cameron saw the alarming rise in UKIP support and made the offer of a referendum to slow it down. It worked wit
The idea of a second referendum to decide how we left the EU is one that I would have supported. But that was never on offer. Remainer MPs, in a majority in parliament, insisted that there be a remain option on the ballot. In short they wanted to rerun the 2016 referendum in the hopes of overturning it.
NOT holding that form of second referendum was a good call.

There was never any such thing as a "referendum on how we leave the EU".

UK: Ok, we had a second referendum and we've decided we'd like the Norway option.

EU: Non. You can have any option except Norway.

UK: But we decided as a nation that we want a Norway-style agreement.

EU: You appear to have forgotten that you have the right to unilaterally leave the EU, but you don't have the right to unilaterally decide what agreements we have in place afterwards, that's a bilateral decision. And we don't agree on the Norway option.

UK: But we had a referendum where we decided we'd leave the EU, and another referendum where we decided we'd do so on Norway-style terms. If we can't leave on Norway-style terms then we have to renege on one referendum or the other.

EU: That would appear to be a "vous" problem and not a "nous" problem.

UK: What's wrong with Norway terms anyway?

EU: We don't want you and your net-contributor status to leave, and rejecting the option your idiotic opinion poll chose causes you maximum inconvenience.

BananaRepublic

NottinghamKnight said:

Mickey666 said:

NottinghamKnight said:

Mickey666 said:

NottinghamKnight said:

Mickey666 said:

MK62 said:

Mickey666 said:

Thrugelmir said:

csgohan4 said:

Thrugelmir said:

csgohan4 said:

LHW99 said:

UK surely makes more exports to the EU than the rest of the world?

Not according to gov.uk

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-exports-to-non-eu-countries-continue-to-outstrip-eu

Surprising given the vast area covered by The EU, however making deals with individual countries, rather than en bloc like the EU, will be very time consuming/expensive and will unlikely have favourable terms compared to the EU as they know they have the UK over a barrel. 

Only 11% of UK trade is with countries with which there's an existing EU trade agreement. The creation of the RCEP has created a headache for the EU. Now the bigggest trade area in the world. 

 While the brexiteers are sniggering in their rich holiday houses abroad, not caring how brexit affects the average Joe. 

You are carrrying one big chip on your shoulder. Time to move on. Remainers living abroad are the ones who object. As it is they they now need to meet conditions of residency. The tales of woe show how much self interest determines peoples views. Much in the same way Covid has. Time to kick American Exceptionalism a byproduct of their form of capitalism into touch. 

If anything, I'd say the Brexit referendum was a masterclass in proving why asking the uninformed masses to make important decisions is the worst example of democracy in action.  It's all madness.

You do realise that it's the same "uninformed masses" who elect our MPs and governments don't you?........should they not be allowed to do that either?

Of course they should, that's the whole point of a parliamentary democracy.  We vote for a representative to make decisions on our behalf, on the basis that those representatives will be better informed than us by virtue of their 24/7/365 time spent on the job plus their daily access to expert advisers, parliamentary debates, select committees, the civil service etc.

We certainly don't or at least that is not what occurs. The majority of the people vote for a party, not an individual with a very few exceptions; indeed those votes are based on a feeling that the broad policies of that party are best for an individual and/ or the country, how many people read any of a party's manifesto. MPs are now supposed to be representative rather than any sort of cream of the population, and unfortunately will follow the party line as they are whipped into voting on the vast majority of issues. when MPs decide to make decisions against their party, and potentially against the majority of their constituents then things get very problematic. 

You're probably right that the majority of people vote for a party and probably don't even know the name of their MP (more uninformed-ness and why there are things such as 'safe seats'), but I didn't mention MPs, only 'representatives'. 

A political party can be our 'representative' and the principle of parliamentary democracy remains - the 'uninformed masses' defer all decision-making to parliament, with the party affiliation of their local MP being a fairly broad-brush expression of their own personal political leanings.

It seems to be a fairly good system, or the least bad on depending on your point of view.  But referendums break the system because they bypass the parliamentary process that generally does a good job of weeding out detrimental decisions, through its process of debate, expert advice, reviews and time for reflection.

In the case of the Brexit referendum, with all its complexity and uncertainty that even the professional politicians and expert consultants couldn't predict or agree about, perhaps a better approach would have been a second referendum when the detailed implications were much better known?

Thus, the first referendum could have been the simplistic in/out question, followed by the inevitable (and important) debate and negotiation of the exit deal, followed by a second referendum asking the same basic in/out question but this time in the fuller knowledge of what the detailed implications would be.

What we have actually done is ask the simplistic in/out question with little real knowledge of the eventual implications but when those implications are better known (ie 'the deal') we have deferred back to parliament to decide, rather than allow the people to decide.

Seems rather inconsistent really.

Maybe, democracy can be taken too far after all, would be much quicker to get the educated and wealthy to determine these matters. people like Boris, Rees-Mogg  etc

Did you forget the smiley?
I think we'd all agreed we've rightly moved on from the days where only landowners were allowed a vote  - and that didn't include women of course.
As for the like of Boris, Rees-Mogg etc, don't forget they are only in parliament because their constituents voted for them, so that's democracy in action isn't it?  After all, it would be an unrepresentative parliament that DIDN'T include representation of such people.

Maybe but the ultimate outcome is pretty similar and the electorate had a clear choice between in and out (as for the SNP in Scotland) between Boris and Corbyn and chose the former. Most people are voting for the least worse option let's not forget.

Boris is not unlike Thatcher, as both benefitted from unelectable opponants and huge luck. The Falklands War covered over the disastrous economic mess, and the Brexit success (in the eyes of many) and the vaccine purchases may well excuse the screw up dealing with covid. Slow to respond at the start. Care homes decimated. A ‘world beating’ track and trace system. 

I wonder if we will lose NI and Scotland? The siren charms of the EU handing out big bags of sweeties may be too much to resist. I bet they don’t want Wales ... 🙂

BananaRepublic

IanManc said:

That little sketch, while very funny, appears not to be how Norway sees it. Apparently Norwegian politicians are now complaining that the UK has a a better deal than they have:

Norwegian Politicians Complain British-EU Deal is Better - Guido Fawkes (order-order.com)

You missed the point of the sketch. And yes we have a much better deal than the Norwegians. However, they have massive oil wealth to soothe the pain. 

NottinghamKnight

Malthusian said:

NottinghamKnight s aid:

Maybe but the ultimate outcome is pretty similar and the electorate had a clear choice between in and out (as for the SNP in Scotland) between Boris and Corbyn and chose the former. Most people are voting for the least worse option let's not forget.

Corbyn's Labour also wanted out of the capitalist club - not that I blame anyone for forgetting his position on anything a year after he became an irrelevance. The Lib Dems were the "in" option. So that actually illustrates your "least worse option" even better than you thought.

Well part of my point was that Brexit wasn't as important as all that to the majority of the electorate, the argument was about the economy and credibility. The main impact of Brexit on the last election was the red wall reacting to being more patronised by Labour than the Tories. Lib Dem credibility is still suffering from the Clegg effect, the populous falling for fake honesty to be rewarded by someone who has no real power in a coalition and becomes an apologist for global tech whilst suitably remunerated, cynicism should never be undervalued.